Get ready for Anaheim: The five most frequently asked questions about the 2007 Golf Industry Show

If you haven’t already marked your calendar, it’s time to start planning with your facility’s management team for the third GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show. More information about the event will begin rolling out as it’s developed, but to help you get started, here are some answers to key questions you may have about the schedule and activities surrounding the upcoming event.

What are the dates for the 2007 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show?

The GCSAA Education Conference will run Monday, Feb. 19, to Saturday, Feb. 24. The Golf Industry Show will retain its traditional Thursday through Saturday schedule, and will be held Feb. 22-24. All conferences and the Golf Industry Show will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center, with some events conducted in nearby hotels.

The GCSAA National Championship & Golf Classic will be held Feb. 16-21 in Palm Springs, just a 90-minute drive from the Anaheim Convention Center.

With the Club Managers Association of America (CMAA) joining the Golf Industry Show in 2007, how will the schedule of events be impacted?

Similar to the previous years, each of the Golf Industry Show’s presenting partners (GCSAA, the National Golf Course Owners Association and CMAA) will conduct its own education conference. However, the conference dates have been staggered to meet each group’s needs:

• The GCSAA Education Conference will run the whole week, Monday-Saturday, Feb. 19-24.
• NGCOA’s Annual Conference will be held Tuesday-Saturday, Feb. 20-24.
• CMAA’s World Conference on Club Management is scheduled Friday through Tuesday, Feb. 23-27.

In this way, each organization can offer the annual conference its members have come to expect, while the overlap at the end of the week allows the facility management team to experience the Golf Industry Show together to further their objectives.

With CMAA as a new partner, will the trade show floor look dramatically different?

No, but it will be larger. Currently, it is anticipated that the 2007 show will include approximately 400 additional exhibitors specifically serving the club management industry.

However, as in the previous two events, the solution centers serve as “anchors” to help you navigate the floor and locate particular categories of products and services. The 2007 solution centers are:

• Team Solutions
• Clubhouse Solutions
• Golf Course Solutions
• Range and Outdoor Facility Solutions

When will GCSAA registration open? And when will I receive the annual GCSAA conference and show brochure?

Online, mail and fax registration is currently scheduled to open to members Oct. 3 and to non-members 30 days later on Nov. 2.

Professional members and past attendees will receive their annual registration brochures with their October issue of Golf Course Management magazine. Other members will receive a smaller version of the brochure.

This proposed schedule, which is later than previous years, will allow us to provide more comprehensive event and speaker information, and matches more closely with members’ registration patterns. Typically, we receive a wave of registrations at opening, and then activity dips until November, December and January.

We do realize that some members will not have received their brochures when registration opens, but they should not feel disadvantaged if this is the case. Over the years, we’ve increased our seminar offerings substantially, so now they do not begin to fill up until at least 30 days after opening. The only recent exception was the popular computer-training seminars that debuted last year. Full seminar descriptions will also be available on the Web site later this summer if you’d like to begin planning in advance.

When will housing open?

We are currently working on opening our housing service in August, about a month earlier than usual. This would not only give you the opportunity to make your arrangements further in advance, but it would also allow GCSAA more time to predict trends and make adjustments as needed.

Please keep in mind that each organization maintains separate and distinct hotel room blocks for its conference. In this way, even though each group is opening its housing on different dates (in fact, CMAA has already opened its block), there’s no impact to the number of rooms already set aside for GCSAA attendees.

Also, you may have heard that several hundred attendees were turned away last year from their hotels in Atlanta. This was an extremely regrettable situation. Although our contract specifies that no attendee is to be turned away, several hotels were overbooked due to the memorial services held for Coretta Scott King and other events with larger than anticipated attendance. Although GCSAA can’t guarantee this will never happen again, we are taking extra steps this year to ensure that it won’t happen in Anaheim.

How can I get updates on conference and show information?

Your best source for news, schedule updates and activity announcements is Newsline’s GCSAA This Week, the e-newsletter delivered each Tuesday to GCSAA members.

At any time, you also can visit the Golf Industry Show Web site, which will be continuously updated with program information as it becomes available.